Scene 3

Consulting room of a doctor's office late that afternoon. ADELINE is alone on stage in her slip. SHE is very unsettled. ADELINE Why is he taking so long? What can it possibly be? I haven't felt well in weeks, and I'm afraid to… Oh God, what if it's… (Her voice trails off. Funereal music begins. Lights dim in the room and rise stage right. GROUP OF MOURNERS enter. A prostrate ADELINE is lying on the ground. THEY take her and place her in a coffin which THEY then load onto their shoulders. MR. ADAMS sits nearby in his wheelchair, softly weeping. LOBELIA and ELMA KARRAS are there, too. The movements are all balletic. TWO ATTENDANTS in white coats arrive, go to Mr. Adams. HE struggles to fight them off with his cane, but THEY lift him from the wheelchair and carry him off. Then the door to the doctor's office opens, and DR. PEYSER appears. DANCERS freeze, the lights dim stage right, come up again in the office. DR. PEYSER is a very tall, rather attractive man in his late 30s. HE is wearing a stethoscope which he places on Adeline's heart. ) ADELINE It was so foolish of me fainting like that in the cinema. I didn't even find out whether Joan Crawford got Clark Gable or Franchot Tone.

DR. PEYSER

Gable.

ADELINE

Of course.

DR. PEYSER

Hear she's slipping.

ADELINE

I beg your pardon?

DR. PEYSER

Crawford. Dwindling box-office appeal. You can put on your clothes now, Miss Adams.

ADELINE

Dr. Peyser, what is it? What's wrong with me?

DR. PEYSER

Miss Adams, you are suffering from a not uncommon malady. It is more generally called change of life.

ADELINE

                                                    (after a moment, to herself)
Change of what life?

DR. PEYSER

That accounts for your nervousness, your crying jags… (As he speaks, the music drowns out his voice and the lights dim on his side of the stage, come up again stage right. The funeral march returns, only this time the Adeline in the coffin conveniently rises and makes room for MR. ADAMS, who obediently takes her place. Now it is she whose turn it is to weep. MOURNERS march across stage again in balletic movements, then turn and march back to stage right with the coffin on their shoulders and the dancing version of ADELINE following. A spot falls on the real ADELINE stage left.) ADELINE                                         He tells me that it's change of life,
                                        But what is it I shall part with?
                                        In order for a change of life,
                                        You have to have had a life to start with.
                                        My life has been my father's life,
                                        And that's the life I chose;
                                        The only change of life there'll be
                                        Is when my father goes. When my father's gone,
I'll keep a light in the hall
At night when everything's still---
I'll pray for someone to call
While knowing nobody will.
When my father's gone,
For lunch it's leftover roast,
A glass of sherry at five.
I'll send for things in the post
Just so that mail will arrive.
I'll wait for the film to change
And go to the first matinee;
I'll put off things I can do
So I'll have something to do
The following day.
So many seeds to be sown,
So many rugs I shall hook.
Sometimes I'll dine out alone
And bring a library book.
And there'll be nothing to share
And so on and therefore
With no one to care
And no one to care for.
And thus my life will go on
When my father's gone.
 
 
  LIGHTS SLOWLY FADE